News

Television: Liam Fay: A bridge too far

Like a cut-price Eamon de Valera, Donncha O’Dulaing only has to look into his scrapbook to know what the Irish people are thinking. Routinely wheeled out to recall his long-ago encounters with presidents, potentates and popes, the veteran broadcaster seems to rank the importance of historical figures on the basis of whether or not he has met them.

Having shaken hands with Ted Kennedy 40 years ago, for instance, O’Dulaing regards the Massachusetts senator as a tragic hero.

O’Dulaing was the star witness in Scannal! (RTE1, Mon), the pulp-history series that revisits scandals which purportedly rocked the nation. In a misguided attempt to return with a splash, the new season opened with an account of the 1969 incident in which an apparently drunk Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick in Martha’s Vineyard, simultaneously drowning his companion, Mary Jo Kopechne, and his prospects of conquering the White House.